The Real ‘Blame America’ Crowd

The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus loves to protect his sources in the Intelligence Community. In an awkward attempt to cast aspersions on the NSA leakers and the journalists who cover them, he posed “Questions for Snowden[2]” earlier this year that were so off-base his employer was forced to publicly correct him. Pincus was outraged at the leaks rather than at the illegality they exposed, so he penned the piece questioning the motives of the leakers and suggesting that journalists who cover the leaks are part of a grand conspiracy.

Well Pincus is back, and again apparently doing the bidding of his sources in spookdom. In acolumn[3] today titled “Good or not, change is coming to the NSA,” Pincus bemoans the anemic reforms suggested by the president’s hand-picked NSA review task force. This task force of course concluded that the mass collection program was completely legal. What else is to be expected when it contains people like former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell, who constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley pointed out[4] actually wants to expand the NSA’s data collection program?

Any restriction is too much for Pincus. Advising amorphous “reforms” like increased oversight and tightening of rules on sharing classified information is dangerous in his view. Any limits on the NSA’s ability to “collect it all” almost begs for another terrorist attack, avers Pincus. If these minimal reforms are implemented, he writes, “it looks like the NSA may be collecting fewer dots and a smaller number of people will have access to all of them — so connections may be missed.”

And therefore if we are attacked again who is to blame? We are! We asked for it!

Concluded Pincus:

If there is another attack, today’s complainers may be as much at fault as the intelligence community, which nonetheless will get most of the criticism.